Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Detroit seemed to dominate the flow of play tonight, but Nashville's been eating their Lucky Charms and have somehow squeezed out another cheeky victory in which we were forced to witness brief--albeit gaping--defensive lapses by Detroit and stupid terrible luck at the worst possible times leading to chances and, in some cases, goals. As if that weren't bad enough, the Hockey gods deemed it fitting to pull a fast one on the Wings, calling back what seemed like the 1st goal of the game, which would have given Nashville a 1-0 lead! The kicker: It was an 'Intent to blow' call!!

Hell hath frozen over!!

...for about a minute and a half, until Nashville came right back in and scored again, truly making it 1-0. This is the kind of game we as Red Wings fans were forced to endure. This is the kind of SERIES we have been forced to endure, as this has been happening since Game 1. Individuals are under-committing, which is forcing us as a team to over-commit. Look at the 2-1 goal. Three (3) skaters follow one (1) Nashville player into the corner to create this chance. At what point does that ever seem reasonable?

This under-commitment is bleeding into the offense as well. The pressure from this team is unacceptable, and the piddly perimeter shots need to stop. Get to the middle and screen the goalie. The outside IS NOT WORKING, it hasn't worked in 4 games! I can't recall all of the goals we've scored over the course of this series, but I guarantee you the ones that have gone in from the sides are not many.

Which gets us back to the dead horse. At what point will Mike Babcock stop the posturing and admit that the game plan the Red Wings have been going with is not working? The Predators have adapted to our style of play. The Predators are not scared of us because they know what to expect and how to defend against it. Insanity is defined by Einstein as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result.

Well, Einstein was a pretty damned smart guy and I think he may have been on to something after having watched this series from Game 1 to 4.

The horse is dead and beaten, the Mule is asleep, and the Jackasses are laughing at it all over a game of ping-pong somewhere, knowing they need one more win to knock off our boys.